When Ben the laughing dog was much younger he developed a habit of sticking his nose in people’s crotches to check them out and say Hello. One of his favorite people to do this too, coined the term CSB or Crotch Sniffing Bastard and so the seed was planted for the name of this beer. A British style ESB with an LDB twist it is crisp but malty and at the same time somewhat playful, it is a great beer to have while out sniffing around, or if you are stuck at home on a short leash for maybe sniffing in the wrong places.

Reviews by BryanCarey:

Laughing Dog CSB Extra Special Bitter is a copper/burnt orange colored brew with a medium body and a nice nose that is caramel- like with added toffee, spice, and yeast. The body of the beer is medium with a slight haze and a good pour produces a rockey head of foam that leaves behind plenty of lace as you drink.

Laughing Dog CSB Extra Special Bitter has a taste that meets expectations, based on the nose, but then surprises the consumer with a few twists. The taste you notice first is the caramel malt flavor, followed by the spice, but there are other flavors present as well, like citrus fruit, earthy notes, herbs, and toasted malt.

Tasting this beer, the flavor I didn’t expect was the fruit. Extra special bitters often have flavor characteristics such as caramel, toffee, and toasted malt, but the citrus flavor took me by surprised, and in a pleasant way. The fruitiness is a little noticeable in the nose, but it is most pronounced in the flavor. This is one of the beer’s many pleasant surprises. You don’t really notice the fruit so much at first, in the aroma, but you certainly notice it once you take a sip.

Laughing Dog CSB Extra Special Bitter is a less bitter beer than other ESB and its hop flavor is rather subdued. It does manage one final bitter sensation in the finish, but the taste remains sweeter overall with an aftertaste that is one of toffee/caramel malt and herbs. It has many interesting things to offer and while it may not rate as a classic, it still has enough good taste to earn a recommendation.

More User Reviews:

Another brewery new to the area,I have had a few of this breweries wares in the past with mixed results for me.Poured into an imperial pint glass a clear rich bronze with a very nice formed one finger white head that settled into a nice froth leaving a broken ring of lace behind.Rich caramel malty aromas with a hint herbal hop in the back,just like it shoutld,so far so good.A little thin in the feel,seems in body and aroma to be English in nature.Caramel malt stands out most with a bit of crisp pizza dough,a healthy shot of herbal,citric hop comes in the finish.I like the flavors but the light feel takes away some of the ooph it could have.This is a nice ESB,Iam a little surprised by the lower ratings it has,I would buy again,its on the cheap.

Tawny, ruddy but clear-looking brew with a head sizable enough to be mentioned. Toasted bread crust nose, almost husky with hints of ripe fruit and yeast deep within. Smoothness gets right to the point in this creamy medium body. Big toasty malt character, a bit husky and biscuity with some vague fruit behind it. Nutty flavor throughout. Balancing hops; herbal and mint tone in the drying finish. Raw, rustic and full flavored, and that toasted biscuit flavor certainly makes sure it gets noticed. An interesting twist on the style.

No bottling dates on beers from Idaho purchased in Ohio, should I roll a dice next time? Pours a nice turbid dark amber with a light khaki than head forming fine bubbled head with thin lacing with each sip. Aroma has a nice citrus/earthy hop base with underlying caramelized malts combining nicely, I love the C.S.B. acronym...Crotch Sniffing Bastard aka how dogs say hello. Flavor a bit tart with fruitiness and higher alpha acids than most ESBs out there. Engaging malt depth, hint of solid fruits riped grape, bitter earthy finish thaat actually sits well on the palate between sips. Finishes super dry especially for a beer like this, with even carbonation and a medium body. Overall I like it at it's premise, excecution and the fact that this unlabeled beer probably has some age on it doesn't help. However, I am still enjoying this beer that comes off a bit too dry and tart compared to what's expected from your standard ESB.

Pours a hazy blood orange colour. Beige, single finger head that dissipates quickly.Apple aroma. Some hops.Apple taste also. Almost like an apple that is about to turn bad in a good way.I'm partial to bitterness and this hits the mark.Mouth feel is pleasant thickness but not overly so..I read a lot of negative things about this beer but drink it with an unbiased thought and you may enjoy.

This beer pours a clear, slightly cloudy dark amber hue, with a multitude of tight rocky beige head, which leaves a barely-broken wall of sandstone lace around the glass as it duly settles. It smells of mild biscuit malt, somewhat musty orchard fruit, and earthy, lea-esque hops. The taste is dry Scandinavian crackers, some tart aged orange essence, and some graveolent, weedy hops. The carbonation is average, and unobtrusive, the body slightly on the light side, approaching smoothness. It finishes with a surge in bitterness, the noble hops doing their thing, the now afflicted malt playing second fiddle.

I feel that there was some New World intent in this offering, but it got lost along the way, and fucked up everything else just a tad. Bitter, yes, like a good little ESB, but the backyard taint is just too hard to ignore. Funny enough - I was presented with this upon walking through the LDB doors a number of years ago, in my pre-BA days, and had an equally just less than thrilled reaction to it. Times, they aren't a' changin'...

Great to see this fairly obscure brewery hit the Blacksburg, VA area. With a tacky label/great concept ("crotch sniffing bastard"!), I had to pick it up...

A super-fluffy head, off-white and looking like vanilla ice cream, lays broad slashes and dashes of lace along the glass. The color is is caramel-like with hues of rusty red.

Super-ultra-uber-malty nose. Makes me think of Fiddle-Faddle, that awesome/gross boxed popcorn confection. There's caramel, butter, nuts, and lots of all that. Once that connection is made, it's hard to draw any other similarity. Maybe Waffle-os cereal. So here we have a wonderful if not completely high-brow nose.

The flavor is about as unsubtle and candy-like as the nose. Big ol' malt bomb here, and again, I'm mostly tasting butter, peanuts and caramel. There's a green-ish hops bitterness coming in as I sit with this, which rides along into the finish. Some maple syrup creeps in too. Pretty dry, although the bitterness rides through even so. Light alcohol flash, but not much. As the ABV isn't given, I'd guess it's in the 6-6.5% range...?

Mouth is slick and round, lightly tingly from carbonation, but considering everything going on in the flavor, I'd say it's just about right.

I can't help but really like this, as it asserts itself as its own brew, really nothing else like it out there that I can recall. It's probably not one I'd ever want more than a bomber of, but I sure am glad to have made its acquaintance. Malt-lovers who dig it a little unorthodox, check this out.

A - almost clear deep brown orange, respectable tan head dissipated slowly leaving random lacingS - toasted grain, plumb and sour apple, toffee and light spiceT - toasted bread and sunflower seed, herbal and piney hops, but the fruitiness of grapes and apples give it a slight Belgian quality making this a unique ESBM - fairly light body, tart and sweet moving to a pleasant bitter and somewhat bready finishO - my first experience with Laughing Dog is a win, this is a solid ESB with a unique fruity twist, a definite stand out that I will purchase again if I can find it

Heavier side of light, carbonation could be just a tad more which would probably help with the sweetness as well. Drinks pretty easy, if you want to. 22 oz was too much for me of this, a 12 oz bottle I could do again.

Overall just needs a little bit "more".

Laughing dog needs to bottle more of these lower abv beers in smaller quantities, I only see them in 22s.

A: Poured a cranberry-amber with light accents of orange hues interweaved throughout. The head was foamy and frumpy, beach sand in color while displaying a respectable retention rate. The lacing was good leaving a spongey, film coating on a good portion of the glass was visible carbonation was composed of broken, sporadic micro bubble streams. The head maintained throughout the course of the drink never lapsing below a respectable ½ finger skim coating.

S: The nose was especially nice with dried brown sugar and a chocolate chip cookie dough scent that was sweet upfront, which was followed by a dry semi-sweet chocolate finish. The overall strength was light to medium in delivery and enough to give you a good appreciation of what's to come.

T: The flavor opens with caramelized malt, dried honey, and brown sugar adding in initial creamy sweetness while a dry hazelnut flavor adds balance and a good sense of bittering. The hopping is medium-strong with earthy tones and soft coffee grounds of hazelnut while the finish rounds out with a crisp dryness of munich toasted malting. A sweet start, followed by a extra special bitterness blends beautifully together delivering a perfect balance between the malts and hops very well suited per style.

M: a medium-full creamy maltiness. A nice sense of carbonation adds livelihood while a dry toasted fade and coates the tongue upon the swallow.

D: Very drinkable example without going light on the bitterness. Very nicely balanced with a sweet and bitter side. Haven't been to impressed lately with this brewery's offerings but this one certainly makes up for it. Worth of a recommend and repeat offering.

A - Three fingers worth of rich creamy light khaki colored head with a slightly rocky top comprised of a good bit of big chunky bubbles... Decent retention... A very light copper color with a faint orange hue... Filled with sluggish small bodied carbonation... Good chunks of lacing cling to the glass...

D - Not quite a textbook ESB... The surprising sour / tart qualities are both interesting and surprising, but really don't add much to the beer and detract from the overall style... Not terrible, but not memorable either...

A tall two finger tan head slowly settles to a razor thin even cap, leaving behind a decent amount of lacing. The beer is a deep and intense copper hue. As the beer descends, rings of lacing are left behind.

Toasty malts with a little bit of citrus hops in the background. There is a curious vanilla yogurt aroma up front, which is a little distracting. It smells like some weird yeast ester, not sure if it's intentional.

There's some burnt caramel, along with a little more of the vanilla-ish ester. The hops add a biting bitterness, with flavor that's more tea-like than citrus. A bit of butter in the background. Full bodied.

A decent ESB with a curious yeast used, or maybe a unique brewing process. The vanilla doesn't take too much away from the beer, but takes away from the drinkability.

Aroma is fantastic.. toasty toffee malts and earthy hops.. fairly clean with only a touch of yeast esters.

Flavor is bigboned for the style... full maltiness and bracing bitterness... fairly big spicy and grassy hops.... I would guess English style malts are used, but could easily be wrong. Lite very lite brown malt presence.. intricate... above average complexity.. Body is lite medium.. but somehow it and the carbonation pulls everything together very well with a lingering full tongue finish.

I've been sitting on this brew since the start of football season and finally decided to pull another tonight for this ESB flight... I have 1 more and am torn what to do with it... I had been saving it for a Laughing Dog trade to a lucky trader, but now... I am thinking I may just save it for me.

I've had CSB a few times on tap at the Front Door (no bottles in Boise) .. while the draft is better hands down, this is a very respectable take on a PNW ESB... big without being overbearing... drinkable without being watery.